


We Won't Reach Back

by TheOceanIsMyInkwell



Series: I Promise You It's Worth It [3]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Ben Parker Dies, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Hurt/Comfort, I don't say this often in my tags but, Peter Parker Gets a Hug, Peter Parker Needs a Hug, Peter Parker is a sad boi but he tries so hard to keep it in and Tony isn't having any of it, Tony Stark Acting as Peter Parker's Parental Figure, Tony Stark Has A Heart, Trans Peter Parker
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-21
Updated: 2020-01-21
Packaged: 2021-02-27 03:17:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,164
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22350124
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheOceanIsMyInkwell/pseuds/TheOceanIsMyInkwell
Summary: They take twin gulps of their tea and stare into the darkness. Then Tony shifts at the exact same second Peter does, and they both make swerving eye contact, and Peter is the first to crack a tiny smile of surprise."Hi," says Tony, stupidly."Hi," says Peter."How are you doing?" Tony whispers. There. There--he's said it. The gate has been opened, the line crossed. There is no going back from this--and even if Tony knows it, he doesn't believe he would ever choose to go back."Not so good," Peter admits. Miraculously, bravely, he is still meeting Tony's gaze."It would be very weird if you were," Tony says."I know," says Peter. "I dunno if I should--be telling you all this, though. I've already made you my, like, interest-free Uber ride. You probably don't need to add 'midnight therapist' to my tab."--Tony and Peter's professor-student relationship takes a sudden turn for the personal when Peter's uncle Ben dies at the end of the semester and Tony offers to take the kid home in time for the funeral. Tony himself comes to terms with his own paternal feelings toward Peter Parker.
Relationships: Peter Parker & Tony Stark
Series: I Promise You It's Worth It [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1365187
Comments: 46
Kudos: 241





	We Won't Reach Back

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Sally0](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sally0/gifts).



> Aaaaand I'm back in this universe!! It's always fun writing Peter as a prepubescent lil shit in high school, but there's just so many possibilities to explore in his dynamic with Tony when you plop them into a university AU. This oneshot takes place during the fall semester of Peter's second year at MIT; he is no longer taking classes with Dr. Stark, but the two have nonetheless grown close vis-à-vis office hours and coffee outings. Also, Peter is a trans boy in this verse.
> 
> Dedicated to Sally0, who yodeled loudly for more professor!Tony AU content like eons ago. Sorry I'm only delivering now. I hope you like it :)
> 
> Theme song and title inspiration: "All Through the Night" by Sleeping at Last

As he toys with the Newton’s cradle that Pepper bought him last Christmas as a semi-gag gift, Tony wonders if he has developed some kind of preternatural sense for small nervous trans boys hovering outside his office door. Because right now he is willing to bet a decent couple thousand of his latest book royalties that the kid breathing heavily on the other side of the lintel is none other than Peter Parker.

He spins once, twice more in his office chair. Because he is allowed to be a child once in a while before recalibrating to mingle with human society again.

“Mr. Parker,” he cajoles in a raised voice. “I promise you the carpet smells much better inside my office than out there in the hallway. Get in here, the door’s unlocked.”

The door handle starts to turn, and then pauses. Tony raises a brow at said handle.

It’s an extra nervous day today, then.

Blowing out a breath, Tony swings his feet off his desk, stuffs them back into his hightops and walks to the door to open it himself.

Peter startles and nearly stumbles from the inertia of the movement. Compelled to look up at Tony without time to slide behind his mask, his eyes are impossibly wide and red-rimmed.

“Hi,” he breathes out.

Tony raises his arm to lean against the edge of the door. “Hi,” he replies. Without another word, he opens the door wider and gestures at the kid with his head to step inside.

Peter is slow to comply. It’s not completely unusual for the kid, but even at his most nervous moments before he tended more toward hyperactive limbs and an uncontrollable motormouth. Tony runs a covert glance up and down the boy as he strolls around Peter to get back to his desk. He doesn’t know why he does it--he’s no Sherlock Holmes--but it’s a habit he has developed over the years, a little tic when confronted with nervous students, in his effort to decipher just what is eating away at them before they even have to open their mouths.

But Peter is an enigma. A closed book. He can be very open when he wants to be (God knows all the hilarious family stories the kid has overshared with him by this time, after their numerous coffee chats and office loungings and accidental side-splitting encounters), yet at the same time Tony must acknowledge that Peter has never really shared anything of true emotional value with him after his first coming out. Tony muses over this not under the assumption that Peter is under any obligation to open up to him in that kind of way, but in light of the fact that it usually took him less than three days to have his average student all figured out.

The only talent he has that makes Pepper mildly scared of him sometimes, she told him before with a roll of her eyes.

Once Peter has sunk onto the chair in front of Tony’s desk, the man plops down across from him and scrounges around in his drawer. He tosses two different ziploc bags onto the table between them. “Graham crackers or grapes? Take your pick.”

“Uh, I’m, um, I’m fine, thanks,” Peter declines.

“Aw, c’mon, Peter, I waited around all day for you to come in so I could show off my atrocious alliteration.”

That cracks an unwilling smile from the kid. He starts to reach over the desk, but then thinks better of it and drops his hands back into his lap. He plays a little viciously with a hangnail as he wets his lips.

“Well, then, I’ll take the grahams because I’m far too old now to repent for my poor life choices. You, on the other hand,” says Tony around a cracker, pointing a finger at Peter, “still have decades ahead of you to get into the healthy eating habits.”

“I’m a college kid. I’m made of, like, ramen and regrets,” Peter points out in a quiet voice, taking the bait of Tony’s banter for a second.

Tony grins. “The good old days. So. Mr. Parker. Tell me what brings you in today. It was obviously not to see my face, since you spent about two minutes and forty-seven seconds outside the door debating whether you were up to beholding my countenance.” He raises a brow at the kid. “Yes, I counted.”

“Well, I…” Peter swallows. “I was just wondering...if you, if you knew anything about the process of applying for a...leave of absence. Or extended leave. Extended leave of absence? I’m a little, uh, new to the terminology. Of leaving. And stuff. And, yeah.” He punctuates himself with a breathy chuckle.

Tony’s brows knit together. “Everything all right, Peter?”

“Yeah, just--I mean, family stuff?”

“I didn’t mean to pry,” Tony clarifies in a marginally more professional tone. “It’s a--it’s a process, you see. Reasons, criteria, people to review, the whole shebang. I mean, it’s way faster than people probably think, but since you’re asking me about it anyway, I just wanted to be upfront that there are some things they approve this kind of stuff for, and some things they don’t.”

“...Oh?” Peter says faintly. 

Tony could’ve sworn the kid just waxed three shades paler, as if the color of his face when he first slipped in wasn’t already concerning enough. He curses to himself for fumbling.

“Yeah, well, you know the works.” Tony waves what he hopes is a dismissive hand--but not an overly belittling gesture--in a desperate attempt to pile on more nonchalance to this whole situation that is swiftly taking a turn for the unknown. “You know, obviously they won’t let you leave just for kicks, but nobody really asks to leave without a valid reason in the first place. It’s usually for medical stuff, or mental health, or death in the family…” He trails off, training his eye on Peter to gauge him for a reaction.

The boy swallows again compulsively. “Yeah. Right. Yeah.” He bobs his head, sounding breathless again. “I knew that. Makes a whole--makes total sense.”

An uncomfortable quiet befalls them both as Tony lowers his jesting exterior to truly look at the kid. Peter seems adamant on staring at his hands in his lap and refuses to look up and meet his former professor’s gaze. Or perhaps he is wholly incapable of doing so. The feeling is not so foreign to Tony himself.

Tony tamps down the sudden and unrelenting urge to coax the truth out of Peter, to offer him fatherly words of comfort. Instead, he clears his throat and opens up his laptop to show Pete where on the school website he can access the necessary forms.

Peter watches and listens in complete silence. The only indication that he is paying attention is an occasional nod.

Tony flits his gaze over the kid again, who appears to have gone a little glazed in the eyes from his instructions. He gives a small sigh and murmurs kindly, "They also have paper forms in the Assistant Provost's office, if you think that might be easier to handle right now than all this multi-step techno-gizmo-what-have-you."

Peter nods vigorously. "Yeah. Y-yeah, I think I'll do that. It's probably--um, yeah."

Tony physically bites his tongue to prevent himself from poking fun at Mr. Parker's extraordinary breadth of vocabulary today. He counts the seconds in his head, then clicks his tongue and leans forward. "Mr. Parker, if I may."

"Yes, Dr. Stark?"

Well, that stings a bit more than Tony thought it would. He knows it's completely unintentional on Peter's part, but he had thought they were well past the honorifics after all their bonding time last year. 

"I know it's not my place to…" Tony bobs his head from side to side and sweeps his hands back and forth over the desk in search of the right word. "Let's just say, we have en excellent counseling center in place here on campus for good reason. The people there are trained, they're sensitive, totally know what they're doing. But I am--I was--I was your professor and I still am your mentor, and so...if there's anything at all I can do for you, being an adult who's slightly more familiar to you around here, I will gladly do it. Even if, y'know, I don't always know what I'm doing. In this department, at least. I mean feelings. All...non-math-related affairs, to be honest."

Peter offers him a tiny lopsided smile at his speech. "I know, Mr. Stark. You've always--made it clear from the start that you're there for me. And that's, that's really great of you."

"Good." Tony sniffs. "That's great." He snatches up a nearby pen and twiddles it.

Peter sucks in a breath. The alarm bells start blaring in the distance in Tony's head. This is it, this is the moment that the kid is going to open his mouth and start speaking and the words that will come out will be the beginning of the emotional vulnerability that Tony knew from day one was kept locked away deep inside Peter.

"Family death," Peter says quietly.

Tony's nervous movements with his hands still. In the silence, they both jump at the scrape of a shovel on concrete outside right below the office window.

"I'm sorry to hear that," Tony says, a tad hoarsely. "Really. I am."

Peter eyes him this time, almost open and honest. 

"I take it you're going home right away?" Tony asks. It's still the week before finals--a knowledge that now hangs heavy between them. Heavy, yet inconsequential now, and almost irreverent.

Peter leans over and drums his finger on the underside of his side of the desk.

"Yeah. I'd take my finals, but...it was...basically my dad that died."

The pen slips from Tony's fingers and bounces against the lower drawer handle with a clatter before rolling across the carpet into the corner.

"Shit."

"I don't wanna cry today," is the first thing, inexplicably, that Peter says in response to that. "I don't--I don't wanna cry today." 

He's got his hands on his knees now and his torso stretched out, every sinew in his body tense as an arrow string, as if by sheer force of will he can hold back the floodgates between his fragile shoulders.

"It's okay," Tony says.

Peter shakes his head rapidly. "Nope," he says, and this time his voice has pitched up.

Tony is helpless. Floating. Feeling a little more than surreal. "Take a cracker, Pete," he says.

"I'm good, Mr. Stark. I really don't think--"

"Just--goddamnit," Tony says. "I'm, I'm trying to think of what to say."

"Don't say anything," Peter whispers. "Literally. Please don't. I don't think I could handle that right now." His last few syllables upturn in a question.

Tony blows out a breath. "Okay. Okay, okay, okay. A distraction. I think we can do that. I think...I think we should get out of here."

"What?" Peter warbles in confusion.

Tony is already up on his feet and tossing on his pea coat and scarf. "C'mon, take a walk with me. We can still catch the Provost's office before they close. We'll grab something to eat on the way back, how does that sound? Actually, you know what, scratch that, there's this really neat café downstairs in the same building over where we're headed. Let's swing by there first."

Peter somehow gets up and follows him with wooden steps. He's all tension and anticipation and self-control wrapped together in razor-thin foil. Tony tries not to think too hard on the ache in his chest when he looks over at the kid. Too close, he tells himself, and he will hurt too much for the boy--and Peter, in turn, will hurt far worse when he sees what a failure of a mentor Tony can actually be.

\--

They make it across campus without much emotional upheaval. Thanks to last night's snowfall and this morning's freezing rain, much of their attention is occupied by having to pick their way gingerly around the slippery patches and the crystallized mounds of snow and mud that dot the grounds like cheap imitations of singed marshmallows.

But after all has been said and done, the shoe was bound to drop sometime. All it takes is one long look at the legal-sized sheets of paper in front of him, and the next thing either of them know, Peter's eyes are swimming and the tip of his pen is shaking and his entire body has fallen captive to a tremble that will not end.

Tony takes the pen from him and lays it back on the counter, where the secretary is eyeing the two of them with a detached sort of wariness.

"Hey," Tony whispers. "Peter. Hey. Hi." His hands hover uselessly near Peter’s shoulders.

Peter's hands fly to his forehead. He digs the heels of his palms into his brows, and his fingers yank at the roots of his hair in a last-ditch effort to keep it together. "I think I--I think I--need a minute. Hold on. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."

A flurry of reassurances flies from Tony's mouth twice as fast as Peter's apologies. Still, the boy twists on his heel to face the wall with an expression of utter grief and shame. Tony's gut churns. He forced himself to turn the other way, so as to offer Peter whatever modicum of privacy he has left in the middle of the goddamn Provost's office, but not before he catches sight of the kid's shoulders shaking with a soundless sob.

Two, perhaps three whole minutes pass. Peter clears his throat with a wet and congested sound and says, "Sorry about that. I'm good now."

Tony finds himself equal parts impressed and horrified at the boy's sheer determination to force his tears back and return to the task at hand.

"Take all the time you need," he says softly, his back still turned to Peter.

"No, I'm good."

“Pete. I’m serious.”

“I’ll manage. I just need to...finish this. And then go home.”

And Tony cannot deny him that. "Okay, kiddo.” The nickname rolls too easily off his tongue. “If you say so."

Wordlessly then, Peter reappears at Tony's side in front of the counter and picks up the pen again. For the space of several breaths, the scratch of the nib on the carbon paper and the rhythmic whine of the xerox machine down the hall are the only sounds cutting through both their thoughts.

When finally Peter signs his name at the bottom and the secretary has torn off the pink copy for him to keep, Tony ventures to speak again. "Made arrangements already to get picked up?"

Peter hesitates, then nods.

Tony, who by now is decently fluent in Parker body language, pauses with a frown. "Your mom gonna get you? Siblings?"

"She's gotta stay home. Take care of all the...arrangements," Peter says carefully. He swipes at his nose. "There's nobody else at home but...I'll figure it out. I think I have enough for the bus."

"Oh? So where's home for ya right now?"

"Queens."

Tony, who has opened the door of the administration building to let Peter out first, freezes on the threshold. “That’s at least a six, seven-hour bus ride.” _Not to mention the ridiculous fare_ , he adds in his head.

Peter shifts his weight from side to side, blowing hot air on his hands and circling his left wrist with his right as is his trademark nervous tic. The salt crystals crunch underneath his soles. He mumbles, “It’s okay, Mr. Stark. Not like I’ll be driving. I can just doze and...think, I guess. Next thing I know, I’ll be there.”

“It’s cold, and it’s getting late,” Tony tries again, as if either of those two ideas had any connection to each other or would have any effect on this ridiculously self-sacrificial kid standing before him. The instant he sees the kid open his mouth to protest once more, Tony makes a spit-second decision. “Nope. No. Let me take you home. If we drive, we can make it in less than four hours. Maybe even closer to three.”

“Oh, no, no, Mr. Stark, I couldn’t possibly impose on--”

“You can. And you’re not, for the record. Never. I wouldn’t offer if I didn’t mean it.”

“I can pay you back for the gas when--when I’ve got my job thing sorted out,” Peter says faintly, and, okay, they are definitely revisiting this ‘job thing’ in the near future, but for now Tony lets it slide in favor of convincing the boy to just take him up on the damn offer.

So he waves a nonchalant hand and steps toward Peter to indicate that they should be heading back to the dorms. “Sure, whatever will make you more comfortable, kid. Lucky you, I charge negative interest.”

“Um, okay. Where are we going?” Peter asks, when he notices that they’ve cut across a different quad than the one they crossed getting here.

Tony curves a brow at him. “You live in the res halls, don’t you? You can get your stuff packed. I’ll pick you up at the circle when you’re done. Just text me.” He pauses to lift the other brow at Peter, as if challenging him not to give him the slip. “You will be there at the circle, won’t you?”

Peter blows out a cloud through chapped lips and nods. His expression is both stricken and distant at once, a commingling of a tugboat adrift and a flash of searing pain.

Tony takes the initiative of patting Peter’s shoulder then and letting his hand linger there with a squeeze. It feels paltry, really, but neither of them have ever been brave enough to cross the line and declare what they somehow know is true, that they are and always have been more than just professor and student, mentor and mentee. Tony is not afraid to say the words _father_ and _son_ \--though he’s only known the kid for a little over a year, he can’t imagine a universe where he would be less than honored to say he is acquainted with Peter Parker--but in these spaces, where the realm of the emotional and the personal suddenly orbits into the academic and the professional, too many things are left unsaid.

Perhaps he should fix that. Someday, somehow, when he finds the courage and the words with which to pinpoint the right moment.

\--

A small part of Tony actually began to believe that the kid wouldn’t show up, but that voice is swiftly quelled on his fourth loop back to the circle when he catches sight of Peter’s impossibly small figure by the stop sign, laden by his red and navy backpack and a single saddle brown leather suitcase.

Tony cannot help but notice the faded gold of the initials B.P. engraved onto the front of the suitcase when he takes it from Peter and loads it into the back seat. He swallows, gives it one last glance, and shuts the door with an echo in the frozen afternoon air that makes them both jump.

The heat inside his Audi is cranked up to the max, and yet Tony’s hands are stiff on the steering wheel. Peter seems to be suffering the same problem, blowing on his hands and rubbing them together with a rasp of skin on skin every few minutes. Tony wonders to himself if this is that psychosomatic thing Sam has always been telling him about.

He clears his throat, about to ask Peter an embarrassingly emotional question, probably, then thinks better of it. Instead he hits the dial for the radio music. An orchestral rendition of “Carol of the Bells” fades in faintly through the speakers.

It begins to snow again once they hit I-84. It falls from the sky like blobs of lazy, whitewashed moisture from the abyss of darkness above them. Up ahead, cars brake and slow, some fishtailing, and the disjointed rhythm of honking reaches them all the way down the line.

Tony drives with his hands curled like vices around the wheel. He doesn’t even realize how hard he has been clenching his jaw until he glances over to the passenger seat and sees the kid slumped with his hands loose in his lap and his cheek pressed against the seatbelt, and the man feels the last of the tension blow through him and evaporate. His hands itch just then with the urge to pat the kid--push his fingers through the messy curls, maybe, or fix the collar of the boy’s jacket where it is askew around his shoulders--but he silences it.

He wonders, just a little bit, just how asleep Peter truly is. If he is passed out from exhaustion, or if he has simply closed his eyes because at times like this it is far easier to not be awake.

Tony has just gotten off on Exit 3 when Peter stirs at his side. The radio is catching nothing but a smear of static at this point. The man reaches over to switch it off and look at the kid.

“Slept okay, bud?”

Peter nods. He presses his forehead against the window--processes a full-body flinch, from the iciness on his skin, probably--and watches the pillars of the bridges blur past. His breath mists on the glass and lends him an even more youthful cast to his person than ever before. 

Tony blinks and suppresses a yawn at the next traffic stop. The lights around him are slanting into streaks of color before his eyes. It’s warmer here in Queens, just slightly so, making the snowflakes slide across his windshield and disintegrate into rivulets on their way down.

As they turn into Peter’s neighborhood and sidle up to the curb where the GPS has directed them to stop, Peter speaks up again.

“Thanks again for taking me home, Mr. Stark. Really. I really, really appreciate it.”

Tony almost tosses him another dismissive _no worries_ or _it was nothing_ or _don’t mention it_ , but instead he finds himself saying, “You’re welcome, Peter.” He folds his hands on top of the wheel and leans against it with his body toward the kid, creasing his face into a smile, because he gets the feeling that that is what Peter could probably use right now.

“You should come up with me. Stay for something to eat or...something. Y’know.” Peter shrugs.

“Thanks,” Tony says. “I’ll be meeting your mom, I take it? In which case it would be my pleasure.”

Peter looks down at his lap. “I, uh...she’s not my mom. I live with my aunt.”

“Oh, okay,” says Tony, not understanding but not willing to pry.

“Should probably have told you this back when we were on the highway.” The kid gestures roundly in the air with his left hand and gulps. “My--my birth parents passed away when I was six. Wait--seven? No, six. I’ve, uh, I’ve been living with my aunt and uncle ever since. Well.” He swallows again. “I’m living with just my aunt, now.”

There are possibly no words in the vocabulary of any language to describe the mass of emptiness that sucker punches Tony in the gut upon hearing Peter. The kid delivers his explanation with all the flat inflection of an orphan accustomed to the feeling of drifting, of living with the possibility of not belonging again, but the sensation is new to Tony and he finds himself reeling, incapable of processing it.

“Thanks for telling me that,” Tony replies with a casualness that belies the absolute turmoil inside him. “No insensitive birth jokes at the dinner table, check.”

Peter pulls his mouth up in a little smile. “Her name is Aunt May. She refuses to be called Mrs. Parker, but you are allowed to do it once upon meeting her before she starts actually holding a grudge against you for it. And whatever you do, if you’re our guest, do _not_ offer to help her in the kitchen. It makes her--uh, well--” Peter searches the air for the right word. “--Makes her feel like a bad host, I guess. And...yeah, I think that’s it. That’s all there is to know. Oh, and the apartment might be a mess. Sorry about that.”

“Bud, after seeing my part of the lab? You still gonna call anything a mess?”

Peter tosses him a pained chuckle. “Thanks. You always roast yourself better than I can.”

It’s not even remotely funny--the whole conversation rates a two-point-five out of ten on Tony’s scale of their bantering humor--but something about the blinking lights of Queens and the soft edges of Peter’s silhouette in the dark of the sedan makes the entire thing sound absurd. Tony snorts once, and then Peter follows, and then the next thing they know, the two of them have devolved into small and painful giggles right then and there in the car.

“I’m sorry,” Peter gasps between his laughs. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”

He sounds about two seconds away from crying.

“No, kid,” Tony says around a grin. “Don’t be.”

\--

May smells like the crumpled wrapping paper you pull out of packages in the mail. Wrapping paper and salt, and she is warm and quietly vibrant, with the aching fire of a widow who will turn the entire world on Atlas’s shoulders to make light for her only son.

The smell, Tony registers when May wraps him in a two-armed hug around his upper shoulders at the doorway. The energy, he saw from a mile away when Peter slipped into the apartment ahead of him and there was the clatter of utensils on a countertop and May ran to her boy and scooped him up in the most desperate of embraces.

He stands there, awkward, eyes stinging despite himself, as aunt and nephew sway back and forth on the linoleum.

He is the explorer in the ruins, the guard in the museum: the intruder standing in the presence of greatness and brokenness. To speak now would be a sin.

May and Peter break apart after what seems to be too short for either of them. It’s then that May straightens with a sniff and acknowledges Tony. She shares the kid’s uncanny ability to paint her face with a smile that is both welcoming and afflicted to the eye of those who know her.

“Stay for dinner,” she says to Tony, after she’s hugged him and he’s patted her back awkwardly in second-hand comfort.

Dinner, it turns out, consists of store-bought rotisserie chicken and overboiled cauliflower and butter biscuits that got a tad too golden in the toaster oven, but Tony for all his high-brow restaurant experience couldn’t care less. The looks of longing and loss and--profound understanding that pass between the two Parkers at the little round table make it the most intimate and memorable dinner he’s had to date.

Tony makes a mental note to send them both something first thing in the morning.

\--

Tony ends up texting Pepper that plans have changed, when both Peter and May insist that he stay the night because it is too late out for him to head back to Massachusetts. Pepper seems far less surprised than Tony would have initially predicted.

Predictably, it takes some hours for Tony to fall asleep being in another family's house. He squirms on the narrow couch under the over-enthusiastic pile of blankets Peter gave him, and he counts the seconds to the uneven ticks of the three different wall clocks that the Parkers own. As his vision adjusts to the dark and the blackness around him shifts to blue, he catches sight of the rows of gold-framed photos on the wall opposite him. It is the center one that captures his attention: a tween version of Peter, unmistakable for his round eyes and toothy grin, flanked by his aunt and uncle as he holds up a trophy for some event or other. May has a different set of glasses and her hair is in a bob, but her smile is the same and it is just as wide and blinding as the kid's. Peter's uncle has a touch of gray at his temples and seems a bit more tanned than the other two. But there is a softness and--almost _shyness_ to the way he holds himself before the camera, and the sparkle and shape of his eyes could very well be the same as Peter's.

Peter himself is still soft around the jaw and buried by a swath of yellow hoodie in the photo. Tony allows him a small grin at the fact that Peter found a moment of pure joy in all this even before he started on T.

Tony doesn't register the shuffle of bare feet on trodden-down carpet until somebody squeaks onto the linoleum and opens the fridge. The stab of light through the kitchenette window into the living room blinds the man momentarily.

"Pete?" he whispers loudly.

"Sorry!" the kid yelps under his breath. "Geez, sorry, Mr. Stark, I didn't realize you were awake."

Tony leverages himself into a sitting position to get a better look at Peter over the top of the couch. He yawns and drops his chin onto the top of the sofa, squinting. "S'okay, kid, I was having trouble sleeping anyway. And this is your house, remember? Open all the fridges you want."

Peter snorts. He leans down to grab what he was looking for from the shelf and shuts the refrigerator. The two of them are engulfed once more in the gloom of 3 a.m.

"Um. Do you want an iced tea?" Peter offers lamely.

By way of answer, Tony slithers off the couch and pads into the kitchen to join Peter. He almost stubs his toe on the weird warped edge of linoleum tile in the doorway. Peter grabs another glass from the drying rack and pours the man a serving from the Arizona ready-pour.

They take twin gulps of their tea and stare into the darkness. Then Tony shifts at the exact same second Peter does, and they both make swerving eye contact, and Peter is the first to crack a tiny smile of surprise.

"Hi," says Tony, stupidly.

"Hi," says Peter.

"How are you doing?" Tony whispers. There. There--he's said it. The gate has been opened, the line crossed. There is no going back from this--and even if Tony knows it, he doesn't believe he would ever choose to go back. All he needed after all was a push from the quiet honesty of that hour of the night between secret pain and waking.

"Not so good," Peter admits. Miraculously, bravely, he is still meeting Tony's gaze.

"It would be very weird if you were," Tony says.

"I know," says Peter. "I dunno if I should--be telling you all this, though. I've already made you my, like, interest-free Uber ride. You probably don't need to add 'midnight therapist' to my tab."

Tony drains his glass and sets it in the sink with a grainy clink before quipping, "Just take another class with me and we'll call it quits, yeah? So. Go ahead. If you need to spill, spill."

Peter circles his left wrist again with the thumb and middle finger of his right hand. He rubs there, back and forth, like it's an old battle wound. Perhaps it is. Tony wouldn't know.

"I don't want to cry," the kid says, inexplicably, for the second time that day.

Something in the center of Tony's heart cracks a little. "Peter. It's okay to cry. You--you probably need to cry."

"But I can't. I shouldn't," Peter protests around a nasal sniff. "It wouldn't do any good."

Tony suppresses a sigh. He may be no therapist, but he can tell from miles away that Peter has a lot of internalized baggage for his age which must have led him to this point. 

"Besides." Peter glances down at the counter and scrubs at a drop of dried chocolate with his thumbnail. "It's my fault it all happened the way it did. I don't deserve to--to--to cry about it afterwards."

Tony lifts a brow. "It's your what now."

"My fault. My, my uncle--he--it happened at the corner store, three days ago. There was a robbery, they said. A shooting, at the store. Three days ago."

Tony nods uncertainly.

Peter's voice grows quieter and more agitated. "I was supposed to go home that weekend. That--three days ago. And we would've gone together, and I would've seen--and he wouldn't have--because I would have been able--" The boy cuts himself off and chokes on a sob so deep and tearless that it rips into the night curtain between them with enough force to make the man wince.

In that same second, Tony feels the bottom of his stomach drop out. It's not--it's not--it can't be--

But he is a genius, and it takes all of one moment for him to put the pieces together.

"Jesus," he breathes out. "Kid. Buddy. Peter. Just--you can't--just don't."

Peter drops his head down on the counter on top of his criss-crossed forearms.

"You can't blame yourself for not taking a fucking _bullet_ , Jesus Christ, Parker. Even if you had been home…" Images assault Tony then, snapshots of Peter's small and broken body riddled by bullet wounds, wet and gleaming on the tiles, and he has to close his eyes and physically rock back on his heels against the onslaught.

"But I should have been," comes Peter's small voice, so, so small, and that's the shot that breaks the dam.

"Come here, Peter," Tony says gruffly. "C'mere."

He doesn't wait for the kid to straighten fully. For the first time since he met Peter, he listens to his instincts instantly and completely. He takes the single step that separates them and he gathers up the kid in his arms, feeling the fragility in his bones, the rage and regret shaking between those shoulders, and he presses the boy’s body against his chest with a desperation of comfort he never knew he possessed.

Comfort, and relief. Relief because now that his brain has supplied him with the images of what could have been--with the possibility of Peter’s carcass on the ground, of Peter’s cold face in the coffin, Peter, Peter, _Peter_ \--Tony cannot help but feel vengeful relief that his kid wasn’t there when it happened.

But when did Peter Parker go from _kid_ to _this kid_ to--to _his_ kid?

“Keep it comin’,” Tony murmurs into the top of Peter’s head. “C’mon, those tear ducts weren’t made to never be used.”

And--okay, that must rank among the top five weirdest things Tony has ever said to Peter, but somehow it works. Another sob rattles through Peter’s chest, and then he’s full-on weeping, twin trails of moisture running down the front of Tony’s shirt.

“’M sorry,” Peter mumbles.

“Never apologize for your grief,” Tony whispers fiercely.

“No, I mean--” Peter pulls away slightly with another sniffle. “Sorry for making you hug me. I mean, like--” A hiccup. “It’s totally outside your job description.”

Affection and tragedy tear through Tony at once. “Hey,” he says quietly. “I think we both are adults enough to say _to hell_ with all the labels, don’t you think? This isn’t me caring about you because you were my student. This is me caring about you because you’re my friend.”

 _My son_ , his heart speaks into the dark. He captures the thought, blesses it, saves it for another time.

Peter opens his mouth as if to protest again, but in the middle of a breath he changes tack. “Thank you,” he says instead.

“No problem,” Tony whispers back. The words leave him in a cloud of things unsaid-- _you’re good, you’re brave, I’m here for you always and whenever you need me_ \--and they cling to the night before evaporating into the mysterious consciousness of the early hour. From outside the window beyond the dinette, the highbeams of somebody’s car cuts through, and it illuminates them both as they stand in the kitchen, face pressed to chest, heartbeat pacing with heartbeat. And in the light Tony sends up a prayer to whoever may be listening that the kid in his arms may not grow up too quickly and too soon, because he himself is far too acquainted with the loneliness of that journey.

For now, Tony prays, let him be a child, as much of a child as there is left in him. Let him not need bravery beyond his years.

And may he be there for Peter when courage fails and the mountains fall.

**Author's Note:**

> For those who don't know, "started on T" means to start taking testosterone, aka hormone replacement therapy. From your neighborhood friendly trans boi :p
> 
> Shoutout to my fiancé Nayani, who when I mused whether I should post this right away for 'instant validation' or wait till the end of the week for 'delayed gratification' when I get stressed out with work/school, shouted unequivocally " _INSTANT VALIDATION_." I love her.
> 
> This verse will still continue to expand with some lighter content/oneshots in between the angsty ones. What do you think? Reactions? Suggestions? I'm open to some prompts if you can think of any :D
> 
> Also, I just went over my previous work and apparently I have a thing for Tony and Peter hugging in the kitchen at, like, 3am. Not sure what that says about me. Do with that what you will
> 
> I love you and i'd love to hear from youuuu <3 -kaleb
> 
> Muh tumblr: theoceanismyinkwell  
> My insta: kc.barrie


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